Abstract
Airbnb is one of the most distinguished sharing economy platforms providing guests accommodations. Despite a high number of individuals who use Airbnb, current behavioral intention model, Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), cannot fully explain guests’ decision-making process to choose such accommodation. Especially, with little to no research being tested on the roles of social media influences and familiarity as information sources associated with the TPB model. The objective of this study is to examine the intentions of millennials to use Airbnb and to investigate TPB model with social media influences and familiarity as mediators on purchasing intentions. Through convenience sampling, a survey of 123 millennials were gathered and analyzed for this study. By employing ANOVA and Baron and Kenny’s Method for Mediation, this study found that both social media influences and familiarity have a mediating effect on the TPB model, and familiarity also playing a partial mediating role in the relationship between social media influence and behavioral intention. This study extends the application of the TPB model and is valuable for Airbnb and Airbnb hosts to understand the intention segments to better comprehend and develop effective marketing strategies towards consumers.
Keywords
sharing economy, millennials, theory of planned behavior, attitude, social norm, behavior intentions, social media influence, familiarity
ORCID Identifiers
Jaewook Kim - https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5994-5971
Wenfang (Eris) Liu - https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1181-2920
DOI
10.5038/2771-5957.2.2.1028
Recommended Citation
Kim, J., & Liu, W. E. (2023). Airbnb purchase intentions: How familiarity and social media impacts millennials. Journal of Global Hospitality and Tourism, 2(2), 183-202. https://www.doi.org/10.5038/2771-5957.2.2.1028
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Included in
Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Hospitality Administration and Management Commons, Tourism and Travel Commons
